Floridian Sonnets 



William Henry Venable 




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COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



FLORIDIAN SONNETS 




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FLORIDIAN SONNETS 



WILLIAM HENRY VENABLE 




BOSTON 

RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS 
1909 



Copyright, 1909, by W. H. Venable 



All Rights Reserved 






The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 



©CI.A253322 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Land of the Feast of Flowers 9 

Twilight on Florida Bay 10 

Fort San Marco 11 

Everglades 12 

The Shark 13 

Genesis 14 

Long Key Viaduct 15 

Portugese Man-of-War 16 

In Their Midst 17 

Outre-Mer 18 

Nirvana of Indolence 19 

Fountain of Youth 20 

The Golden Treasury 21 

Shakespeare in His Sonnets 22 

Michael Angelo 23 

Angelo's Contrition 24 

To Her 25 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Chaucer 26 

Milton 27 

Wordsworth 28 

Log-Book 29 

Remembrance 30 

To Coates Kinney 31 

To the Same 32 

Appreciation 33 

The Trumpeter 34 

Sursum Corda 35 

The Common Man 36 

Mutation 37 

The Unknowable 38 

Dilemma 39 

Rescue 40 

Toleration 41 

Conscious Evolution 42 

Inevitable 43 



FLORIDIAN SONNETS 

Long Key, Florida, 
November, igoj. 



LAND OF THE FEAST OF FLOWERS 

Where yon star-spangled banner waves command, 
I hear the drum roll and the bugle blow, 
Like martial echoes from that Long Ago 

When streams ran sparkling over golden sand. 

For cavaliers of royal Ferdinand; 

'Twas here Menendez doomed the Huguenot, 
And here, with martyr blood of brave Ribault, 

To fierce baptismal gave a savage strand. 

What chronicle ! What medley of romance, 
Of war, ambition, hatreds, loves, and fears. 

Nations have written on this wild expanse 

Scarce yet explored, though seven-and-ten score 
years 

Are gone since bowed the oriflamme of France, 
St. Augustine, to thy bold Pioneers. 



TWILIGHT ON FLORIDA BAY 

No hues of language may depaint the scene 
Illimitable, mirrored on mine eyes, 
Here, in rapt stillness, when from gloaming- 



Tinct with aerial blend of gorgeous sheen, 
Dartle, upon this coral-fringed demesne 

Of summer sea, zoned myriad-rainbow-wise. 

Beams magical, transmuting into dyes 
Vermillion, amber, rose, and golden-green. 
Turquoise and sapphire, — ruby, amethyst; — 

Then somber shadow, — opalescent gray 
Blushing to farewell crimson, softly kist 

By the impassioned lips of swooning Day, — 
Lo ! see where, kindling through the vesperal mist, 

Venus hangs trembling o'er the tremulous Bay. 



lO 



FORT SAN MARCO 

Hoary San Marco, thy grim bastions haunt 

My dream. Moat, ruined demilune and draw- 
bridge, all, 

Thy place-of-arms and sally-port, recall 
Romance of war, herald and trumpet, vaunt 
Of leaguered stronghold, insolent taunt 

Flung back ! — In shadow of thy seaward wall 

Squats the black furnace which with cannon-ball 
Shotted the mortar, thundered thence to daunt 
Bombarding decks, boom answering to boom ! 

Proud Osceola, scorning captive moans. 
Broke thy barred prison. — Tell me, did the doom 

Whereof tradition whispers, give to groans 
Of torture, one In that deep dungeon tomb 

Where the old sergeant found the moldering 
bones ? 



ii 



EVERGLADES 

Like emerald rivers, or the rippling sea, 
Round myriad visionary Isles they swim, 
Rivers of grass, and tufted Islands dim. 

Where wave the mangrove and the cypress tree; 

Illimitable fields of mystery, 

Fading from view on the horizon rim, — 
Behold the Everglades ! whereover skim 

Wild waterfowl, of all free things most free ! 

Most free, and yet forevermore pursued, 
Forevermore pursuing, — how like those 

Dusk Savages who sought the solitude 

Of yon green hammocks to escape their foes. 

Is there no Freedom that can refuge find 

For Man, against his predatory kind? 



11 



THE SHARK 

Captured ! Along the beach those shouts reveal 
The fisherman exultant victor ! hark ! 
The Karcharos, from out his crystalline, dark 
Blue lair by rud of flesh and lurking steel 
Bewrayed, hath ravined down with his last meal 
Death as a gobbet. On the hot sand, stark, 
He gasps and shudders agonizing. Mark! 
With horrible grin those bloody jaws appeal 
Unto his gloating murderers. — No more 

Those serried ranks sextuple of fanged white 
Shall scare the shallows and appal the shore, 

Nevier again wreak havoc and affright, 
Ranging the Gulf Stream, weltering in gore ;— 
Poor Shark! Man-eater! learn of Man, to fight. 



13 



GENESIS 

Wrought by primeval Force through Centuries, 
Forever struggling gainst the jealous Deep, 
Scourged by the solstice and tornado sweep. 

They dure all conflict, these Floridian Keys; 

Grappled and tortured by amphibious trees 
Whose gnarly arms writhe as in giant pain, 
Whose ravenous roots from oozy marsh sus- 
tain 

Empoisoned life sucked out of brackish seas. 

Around and o'er the teeming jungle range 

Devouring shapes that crawl, or swim, or fan 

The pungent air. — So, through progression strange. 
The strong surviving. Evolution's plan 

Brings that Sixth Day when by creative change 
Brute Nature yields dominion unto Man. 



14 



LONG KEY VIADUCT 

Hew me a forest of Florldian pine; 

A mountain crushed, unfreight me on this dock: 

Old glacier quartz-grind; Hudson granite rock; 
Pulver of quarry blasted 'yond the Rhine, 
Of magic proof against the gnaw of brine; — 

Tons of torse Iron; Vulcan's ponderous sledge; 

Catamaran; uncouth, gigantic dredge; 
Bring legion stalwart men, who, as 'twere wine, 
Drink danger. — So a winged voice of Gold 

Spake through the Engineer. — From shore to 
shore. 
Rose 'bove the Sea, pier, spandrel, arch, behold! 

Bridging the billowy distance ! Then high o'er 
Howl of the surge and hurrlcano rolled 

Trade's thunder-chariots, mocking Ocean's roar. 



55 



"PORTUGESE MAN-OF-WAR" 

Frail Argo of the foam ! thou breeze-blown shred 

Of floating rainbow; shallop gay of toy; 

Conceit of sportive nature ! Ship ahoy ! 
Where thy ambitious bourne? — Breakers ahead! 
Furl sail betimes! — Unheedful onward sped 

My gallant navigator of the spray, 

Breasting vicissitude. The morrow day 
I saw him wrecked upon the sands and dead. 
E'en so on Fortune's to'ssing billows ride 

Man's puny ventures seeking wealth or fame ! 
So fare our launched desires upon the tide 

Of Chance, when we our impotence proclaim 
By bubbly show of courage, pomp, or pride. 

Like this puffed Nothing of pretentious name. 



i6 



IN THEIR MIDST 

See where, e'en as In picture, day by day, 
Yon shallops lie at anchor, so remote 
The eye discerns not phantom boat from boat! 

There, biding chance and patient of delay, 

Rude fishermen the lingering moons outstay, 
Still vigilant to tend the anxious net. 
Like those erewhile who sailed Gennesaret, 

Lowly and poor and sin-beset as they. 

Mayhap some James or Andrew sojourns there, 
For human hearts are evermore the same. 
And every bosom feeds a mystic flame, — 

There John and Simon Peter unaware 

May bide discipleship, and with them He 
Who stilled the stormy waves of Galilee. 



17 



OUTRE-MER 

Due east, beyond the main, lies Bojador, 
Where Afric's coast affronts the setting sun. 
And there, hard by, through desert rocks do 
run 

Thy waters, River of the Golden Ore; 

And there, by night, upon the tented shore 
The Moslem halts his nomad caravan. 
There mutters his Arabian Alkoran, 

While these same stars their solemn splendor pour 

On him, as here they do on me and mine. 
I dream across the Atlantic, and I stand. 

Tomorrow morning, in the sudden shine 
Of Orient day, and gaze across the sand 

Toward Mecca, with my brethren : — for the shrine 
Of the True God is found in every land. 



i8 



NIRVANA OF INDOLENCE 

Beneath a drowsy palm which droops alow 
Its graceful bole and whispering fronds to 

screen 
My indolence from glaring day, I lean 

Upon this dune that mimics drift of snow, 

Thrall to soft idleness, abandoned so 
To listless joyance of a sky serene, 
And slumbery ocean, that I nothing ween 

Save dreamy glimpses aye that come and go : 

A plume of smoke, a shimmering sail unfurled, 
A hawk in hovering poise or dartling chase, 
A dolphin sporting in the foam, a trace 

Of melting cloud. — I close mine eyelids, swirled 
Into oblivion of Time and Place, 

Absorbed and lost in the unconscious world. 



19 



FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 

That gray-beard Spanish cavaHer of old, 
Who, thrldding jungle and palmetto shade. 
Dark cypress swamp and pathless everglade. 

Sought El Dorado and its fabulous gold. 

Misread the charmful allegory told 

By Indian romance, and, self-betrayed. 
Wasting his remnant weary days, he strayed 

To lurking death, not destined to behold 

Fountain of Youth. — What happier chance befell 
Most fortunate me, beneath a jasmine vine. 

There in Floridian wildwood ! Sooth to tell, 
Did not my soul that parable divine. 

Rejuvenated by the virtuous well 

Of sparkling love in those clear eyes of thine? 



20 



"THE GOLDEN TREASURY" 

She brought one book to that sequestered Cay, 

Rhyme's linked sweetness by the voice discrete 

Interpreted with modulation meet : 
Melodious Elizabethan lay, 
Rare lyric fragrant of Victoria's day, — 

Outrivaling skill of larks and nightingales, — 

Songs from the heights of genius and the dales, 
Whose echoes In the haunted memory stay. 
From often vesper service to the Muse, 

Our hearts, exalted, took a joy secure. 

And drank a spiritual solace pure, 
Reviving as to flowers the pensive dews : 

Religion hath a liturgy and shrine, 

And poesy its ritual divine. 



21 



SHAKESPEARE IN HIS SONNETS 

Mine eyes oft drink this magic poesy, 

Essential wine of Shakespeare's many a mood, 

Deep with the rosy tinct of love imbued, 
Yet bitter-sweet with jealous agony. — 
Of all mankind himself epitome, 

Who breathed these musings felt and under- 
stood 

"All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood," 
Compact of passions. Yet supreme was he, 
Like to a god, undaunted by the vast 

Sublimity of Nature and of Time, 
"Not Avondering at the present or the past;" 

For him the world was in perennial prime. 
Its pomps, its pageants, but as scenes recast. 

Living and moving in his powerful rhyme. 



22 



MICHAEL ANGELO 

Love, Beauty, Art, Ambition, Sorrow, Death, 
Repentance, God, — Buonarotti sung. 
Burning to age with passions ever young, 

Breathing through mortal life Immortal breath. 

Like him whose verse outrelgns Elizabeth ; 

By Rome and Florence wronged, by malice 

stung 
To Indignation furious, his tongue 

Scorned tO' pronounce a servile shibboleth. 

As Dante proud. Imperious, and lone. 
Grand like Savonarola, towering so, 
Gigantic o'er the Titans of his time, 

In eloquent color and Cathedral stone, 
Singing to vision, Michael Angelo 

Builded his glorious harmony sublime. 



23 



ANGELO'S CONTRITION 

Consumed by love of Beauty, and aflame 
At human heart with half-celestial fire, 
Kindled by torch of sensuous desire, 

At once his torment, happiness, and shame, 

A glow more fierce than frosty age could tame, 
BuonarottI taught this blaze aspire 
Burning to sacred incense on the pyre 

Of pure devotion to Colonna's name. 

Yet even when kneeling on the brink of death. 
Praying for grace, confessing earthly love. 
He would condone it with a chastening rod, 

And justify, with penitential breath, 
Passion akin to nobler hopes above. 

Laying the blame, beseechingly, on God. 



24 



TO HER 

The grief of love is that, In giving all, 
It cannot infinitely more Impart 
Than the full world of one poor human heart; 
For, In exchange for woman's faith, how small 
Man's best return ; therefore we would forestall, 
As eager merchantmen, the future mart. 
We poet-lovers, with our passionate art, 
To pay one tithe our promise prodigal. 
If earth afford not time enough, may be, 
Sweet Creditor, that when this mortal bond 
Dissolved shall set our winging spirits free, 
Eternity and some access divine 
Of faculty may bless thy soul and mine 
With griefless joy this yearning life beyond. 



25 



CHAUCER 

O Joy of Life! let hoary age grow young, 
Reading thy praise in Tale and Virelay, 
Ballade and Rondel, blythe as morning-day. 

By him, the bard of love and laughter, sung. 

Whose English, sweet as bragat on the tongue, 
Lends to the birds and gives the blossoms gay, 
Fresh melodies, bland odors, when soft May 

Trips o'er the daisied meadow-grass new-sprung! 

Exquisite art which tutored Chaucer's pen 
To trace and color Nature, soothly known; 

Re-imaging true archetypal men; 

Right royally admonishing the Throne: 

"Drede God, do law, love trouthe and worthinesse, 

And wedde thy folke ageyne to stedfastnesse." 



26 



MILTON 

Lost Paradise and Paradise Regained, 
Sublime, sonorous, like that seven-fold 
Sphere-music down the crystal heavens rolled, 

In solemn epic symphony deep-strained; 

Not these, of lofty argument sustained. 
The strenuous labor of the mighty-souled 
Milton of Cromwell, have the charm to hold 

My captive spirit goldenly enchained. 

Rather that Milton of a gentler Age, 
Inheriting the selfsame woodland note 
Of him who turned it to the sweet bird's throat; 

Not the blind Samson with the world at rage. 
But he, the swain who^ by smooth-dittied song 
Rescued the Lady from all fear of wrong. 






WORDSWORTH 

Po€ts there be whose passionate verses pour 
E'en as cascading streams that rush along, 
Tumultuous torrential flows of song, 

And wake the echoing vales with mellow roar; 

And there be bards profound of calmer lore, 
Whose inexhaustive numbers full and strong, 
Like storm-blown, multitudinous billows, throng 

And roll in rhythmic thunder on the shore. 

The shouting brooks which down the mountains 
leap, 
Moon-litten lakes that ripple to the breeze, 
Wordsworth! thy joyous hymns resemble these; 

Thy grander songs majestically sweep 
Like Amazon or the unfathomed seas, 

Deep answering unto harmonious deep. 



28 



LOG-BOOK 

The Captain's glass was peering far ahead; 

In open sea beyond the reefs we were, 

When, buoyant-hearted, our Young Passenger, 
Beaming around with eager vision, said, 
"Where is the Gulf-Stream of which 1 have read 

In Maury?" — "Eh?" replied the Captain. 
"How? 

Gulf-Stream? Why, here; we're in the Gulf- 
Stream now!" 
As we sailed on with canvas bravely spread, 
My sober meditation mused the theme 

By that brief catechism to my old 
Sad mind revealed as in a warning dream. — 

I know, and yet might shrink from being told: 
Long have you voyaged on the Mexic stream 

But now are drifting to the Norway cold. 



29 



REMEMBRANCE 

As who unlocks a half-forgotten chest 

Where hide old keepsakes, heirlooms, letters, 

books, 
E'en so is he whose gray-browed leisure looks 
Into the casket of his youthful breast 
For treasured trinkets there so long possessed, 
So alien to his use that not his own 
They seem, but some dear kinsman's he has 
known 
Long, long ago, some confidential guest. 
Ah sacred relics of remembered years ! 

And of a foregone selfhood, whither fled? 
Young hope, first love, heroic fervor past 1 
The eye of memory o'erbrims with tears ; — 
Mourn fo^r thyself and thy delusions dead. 
And shut the trove of recollection fast ! 



30 



TO COATES KINNEY 

Best comrade of my soul, would thou wert here, 
That we, beneath these orbs of lambent gold, 
Discourse might share, or mute communion hold 

With constellations drawing strangely near 

As if those secrets they would render clear 
Oft importuned by speculation bold 
When thou their infinite mystery manifold 

Strove to translate, while biding on our sphere. 

My mournful spirit vainly scans the night. 
In vain I question lone immensity; 

Yon reticent stars watch from their solemn height ; 
The sad, pale moon drowns in the darkling sea; 

Drift on the Fire Mists in eternal flight; 
O from the Silent Vast, speak thou to me. 



31 



TO THE SAME 

That shrine the sexton told me was thy tomb, 

There where the hills of Wayne slope greenly 
down 

To willowy Miami, near the pensive Town 
Mournful without thee, though its mold consume 
Thy consecrated bones, may not inhume 

Genius from proud remembrance; nay, Renown 

Hath woven thy unfading laurel crown. 
And o'er thy dust Love's amaranth shall bloom. 
Well didst thou rear thy monument, not stone 

Nor votive bronze; no mausoleum wrought 
In burnished gold ; no obelisk, wodd-shown, 

To mark where monarch reigned or soldier 
fought : 
My Poet shall to nobler fame be known 

By what be builded of immortal thought. 



32 



APPRECIATION 

"Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem, 

And gives thy pen both skill and argument." 
Let every Poet soothe his discontent 

With this monition of the bard supreme. 

Sing to that few, or one, who shall redeem 
Thy soul's dear offspring, like a savior sent. 
If Shakespeare to his muse new ardor lent 

By such incentive, kindle so thy theme. — 

E'en as a trembling chord awakes a tone 
Responsive in the lute-string of its kind. 
So answers mind attuned to kindred mind. 

Each mood, each thought, vibrating to its own : 
Then sing to thy true lover who shall find 

Thy poem's deep intent, by him first known. 



33 



THE TRUMPETER 

A traveler, near his journey's utmost bound, 
With dull ear heard confusedly his name 
Whirling abroad and roaring like a flame; 
Then, as aroused from out a walking swound. 
He was aware of one who madly wound 

A trumpet. — "Whence art thou? what dost pro- 
claim?" 
"From everywhere and nowhere: I am Fame, 
And I am sent thy glory to resound." 
"By whom? and why so late?" — "I can not tell." 
"But wherefore this award?" — "I do' not know; 
Some heraldry of custom bids me blow ; 
Whom Time hath chosen, his renown I swell ; 
Mine not to question, only mine to blare 
Another noise into the obstreperous air." 



74 



SURSUM CORDA 

Here on, this barren fragment unreclaimed 
Of coral reef o'ersurged by tidal brine, 
Shifting each fluctuant hour its border-line, 

I did not think to hear, loud-clarion-famed, 

Or whispered to my solitude unblamed. 
Rumor of Politics; but o'er the shine 
Of watery waste, and continental fine, 

Sounded the Nations and great names were named ! 

Then I rejoiced with an exceeding awe 
And the religious rapture patriots know. 
Who in their love of country love the Race, 

Enjoining equal privilege and law ! 
A Citizen ! a Man ! how can I go 

Away from Home, beyond my People's 
place? 



35 



THE COMMON MAN 

Who Is the Common Man? By whom defined? 

How his ingredient nature estimate? 

By what alembic differentiate 
The universal from the special kind, 
Or what potential slumbers In each mind? 

The great how little, and the smallest great ! 

Was not the Savior tO' the middle rate 
By the proud rulers of the world assigned? 
All men are men ; no man Is more : bound all 

In one democracy of blood, the same ; 
Coequal heritors of sense and soul ; 
Whirled round diurnal on this earthly ball, 

Resolved to common dust from which they 
came. 
Brethren alike in origin and goal. 



36 



MUTATION 

Cult, credo, social orders that pertain 
To human progress, polity and laws; 
Science, philosophy; effect and cause 

Of war and wealth or poverty and pain ; 

Rise and decline of empire; loss and gain 

O' th' whole world; ancient and modern saws 
Of wisdom : these but eddyings and flaws 

In the full tide of Time which moves amain 

Its fateful course; and what is man? A leaf 
On Igdrasil, that for a season stirs 
With kindred rustling multitudes, then whirs 

Into oblivion : — such our mortal fief ! 

How void of worth your proud Opinion, sirs, 

Or mine, our term of fluttering so brief. 



37 



THE UNKNOWABLE 

I solve not whence we come ot whither go, 
Or wherefore this evolving universe, 
Whether our stars bring benlson or curse. 

Or what the origin of weal or woe. 

Evil or good ; I am environed so 
By mystery Inscrutable. — Yet more 
I dread my Ignorant soul asleep to nurse 

Upon the breast of blind Belief, than know 

She bides In darkness, nor may comprehend 
By Faith or Science, causes absolute. 

Spirit nor Matter, Force, Beginning, End, 

Space, Time, nor Motion, may our thought com- 
pute; 

Unknowable forever, these transcend 
Philosophy and strike Religion mute. 



38 



DILEMMA 

I told my problem to the gracious priest, 

Seeking solution eagerly essayed : 

Aghast he murmured, "Heresy!" and prayed 
For my redemption. He, of all men, least 
Could cure the need his medicine increased; 

His pilgrim scrip contained for me no aid 

Along my untrod way, and he, afraid 
Of onward steps, recoiled. — Ghosts which had 
ceased 

Long since to haunt the cloisters of my brain. 
Thence exorcised, through timorous years had 
grown 

To him more direful, — ghosts and shadows 
vain ! 
My soul's Apollyons were to him unknown; 

My struggles were his grief, his grief my pain; 
I thanked his prayer and went my way alone. 



39 



RESCUE 

Is Doubt mine enemy? a subtle thief 
Who creeps into the darkness of my mind 
With potions to benumb and thongs to bind, 

Insidiously to steal away belief 

And purloin faith, that I beyond reprief 

Must languish, so imprisoned, doubly blind. 
Of God forgotten and by men consigned 

To retribution and unpardoned grief? 

Nay, Doubt awakened me from open-eyed 
Somnambulism; — my unconscious way 

Led on toward beetling crags and chasms wide ! 
Dismayed I woke; the stars seemed all astray! 

But soon came Reason to my wandering soul 

And showed me Ursa Major and the Pole. 



40 



TOLERATION 

Let me not worship idols of the Den, 

And dogmatize as though my groping thought 
Had found the Absolute, by wisdom sought 

Since Adam grew a brain of purblind ken. 

Presumptuous he whose three score years and ten 
Have not this gospel of forbearance taught: 
"School not thy brother, saying, 'Thus thou 
ought. 

So must believe, in awe of other men/ " 

Nay, harken backward through the centuries, 
And heed the voice of martyrs done to death ! 

Must hemlock numb the lips of Socrates ? 
Must zealous crucifixion hush the breath 

Of Him who spoke the blessed heresies 
Of Christian faith, Jesus of Nazareth? 



41 



CONSCIOUS EVOLUTION 

Then what Is He, the Being you revere, 

The Not-Yourself that makes for Righteous- 
ness? 

What is He more than superstitious guess 
Of priest or poet? Conscience, Guilt, or Fear, 
May not God be? Totem or Idol mere? 

Delirium of reason? Storm and stress 

Of blind emotion? How can worship bless? 
I asked my kneeling soul, with skeptic sneer. 
She gav^e me answer: Even as the fire 

Ascends by Its own nature, so I burn 
Upward to the Celestial. I aspire, 

And oft, in rapturous devotion, learn 
What Self-Creation means ! and my desire. 

So beatific, seems my prayer's return. 



42 



INEVITABLE 

Needs must an old man meditate of Death; 

Needs wonder, musing, whether he may greet 

Another budding Spring, and hear the sweet 
Carol of mating birds, and feel the breath 
Of May, that with fresh roses dallieth; 

Or if, next vernal year, his weary feet 

Shall walk no more, his heart no longer beat, 
Nor shall he wist what any comrade saith. 
Bethinks he then of all he dreams to do ; 

Of all he hoped he might be, and was not; 

Counts o'er the joys and sorrows of his lot; 
But most remembers Her and those dear few 

By whom he knows he ne'er will be forgot, 
O best beloved Ones, most kind and true. 



43 



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